Jonathan Turley would be an excellent choice to fill Souter's seat on SCOTUS...

.... considering he would not only be on the right side of the issues to be decided, but he possesses the knowledge, skill, and experience, to persuade other members of the SCOTUS to reach the correct positions.

Of course, such a nomination would set off the all-time biggest confirmation confrontation with Senate Republicans given Turley's stated positions on war crimes and possible prosecution of former Bush Administration Officials.

Just a fleeting thought ....(but wouldn't it be GRAND?)

... though there are plenty of qualified women/minorities to fill the position.

As I was told many years ago, the world is full of good --or even excellent-- choices to meet the job description. However, the number of people who exceed those qualifications and would truly be extraordinary if chosen are remarkably few.

This is one job where the fate of millions rides on the decisons made.

We need 'extraordinary', and if that person is female or minority all the better.

...ridiculous to name another white male ~ or even another male.

IF there is another 'Einstein' out there in a chosen field, we all benefit from that person filling the position rather than someone eminently qualified to fill the position.

Next time you need open-heart surgery, ask yourself if it is more important that your surgeon be female(or male) or minority(or white) OR that they be the best in their field?

To choose that extraordinary individual to fill the position over other qualified individuals who happen to be female or a minority would be the right choice.

...I won't be settling for any excuses ~ it's time for another woman on the court. Period. :)

... but please don't hand us an unreliable centrist woman as the nominee just because she is a 'qualified' woman.

The women(and men) of our country deserve better from a member of the SCOTUS.

...and it was very important to a lot of voters.

He has already surprised a lot of career politicians and bureaucrats by insisting on hearing from everyone in the room before making important decisions.

I think women and minorities are underrepresented in our government, and I would like to see that changed.

However, as every 'trailblazer' has shown, they need to be 'extraordinary' in their abilities as well as their resolve in order to make it easier for others to follow them.

Those 'extraordinary' individuals are out there. We need to find and identify them. And an 'extraordinary' Justice on the SCOTUS can through that position make it possible for millions of other women and minorities to not only have a chance to succeed, but be paid a fair and equal wage that has nothing to do with their sex or race.

self delete

...I think we should acknowledge that there are dozens or hundreds of uniquely qualified potential nominees, any one of whom could be chosen for a particular sort of diversity s/he would bring.

Enough old men. Let's have an old woman. Let's have some ethnicity not permanently subjugated to party ideology.

A la Ron Paul, being right on one issue doesn't make him right on many other issues.

NT

Doesn't mean I want them on the Supreme Court.

I guess DU is starstruck again, though, so I'll just bow out.

Clinton did lie.

But (1) did that constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors" and (2) anyone who was paying attention would know that the right was engaged in a witch hunt.

And full disclosure: I loathed Clinton.

standing up for his beliefs with his intellect. He's not one wit bullied by these neocon clowns.

Ohhh, interesting choice. :thumbsup:

I do have a hot crush on JT. :blush:

Rather, he was leading the charge. The only sense in which Turley has integrity is that Turley has a perpetual hard-on for impeaching/prosecuting/investigating anyone and everyone, regardless of the merits of the case.

of fear or complicity.

A liberal ideologue is needed to counter the reich-wingers that the pukes have stuffed the court with.

I don't think he'd create more of a fight then nominating some other liberal.

It isn't up to the Supreme Court whether the war criminals in the Bush Administration are prosecuted.

We tried that with the Surgeon General.

...doesn't mean Jonathan Turley shouldn't be considered for the Supreme Court.

The problem with Sanjay Gupta isn't that he's on TV, but that he misled the public about Michael Moore's "Sicko" documentary.

I think Gupta's falsehoods about Sicko (which were limited to misidentifying a guest on-air, and to claiming Moore was mistaken on a single figure related to Cuba's health care system when in fact Moore provided the correct number) pale in comparison to Turley leading the charge for Clinton's impeachment.

Yes, Moore claimed that Gupta lied like twenty times in that segment. And CNN provided factual backup for every claim but those two. On many of the disagreements, they were simply interpreting the same data differently, or were looking at different but equally-valid studies. It's no more reasonable to say "Gupta lied" on those than it is to say "Moore lied."

If two factual errors (of the intern-screwed-it-up sort) on a single, brief segment that was shown one time are enough to disqualify someone from the glorified-mouthpiece job of Surgeon General, I would think that Turley's belief that Clinton needed to be removed from office would certainly disqualify him.

...to believe Clinton should have been impeached, when someone is consistent in also opposing Bush's power grabs.

I'd like to a Supreme Court Justice with a narrow view of executive power.

"you are either for unlimited executive power, or you think the Constitution requires the impeachment of anyone accused of anything by anyone."

who are equally qualified and deserving of a SCOTUS appointment. There are also many minority men. I have "heard" that my own Governor Patrick is on the short list.

Another white male is not the answer right now.

...he's beyond smart, but seems to be the 'scholar who knows all, but doesn't have to practice the lesson'...

i prefer him in his current state: the voice of the 'letter of the Constitution'...i'm not too sure about his ability to "..persuade other members..." as the SCOTUS judges seem to be fairly individually self-directed...being in that position has to have incredible effects on one's ego...

to be on the same Supreme Court as Clarence Thomas?

I'd like a judge with experience, cognitive capacity, and a record of decisions that promote social justice for all.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

now that would be entertaining.

..after the fact, you still get the full label. If you see someone commit a crime and fail to report it, you are aiding in that crime. Once it's known that you saw it and did nothing you are then either obstructing justice or an accessory after the fact



I bet if McCain had won and done the same thing we'd all be calling McCain a war criminal right now.

You have to apply the same standards to all, failure to do so will give us another Bush like presidency one day, or maybe something worse.

The same case could be made for all Congress Critters who know about waterboarding and did not try to stop it. And many of them knew exactly what was going on

But he engages in preposterous hyperbole using actual legal terms with real, precise meanings. He has enough of a legal background to know what he's saying is bullshit. It seems he either believes that lying about the law is fine "to make a point" (or, more likely, to get ratings), or he's so far gone he actually, seriously thinks that Obama and all of Congress are all war criminals.

Neither are traits I want on the Supreme Court.

If someone commits a murder in a small city, and the mayor says, "Not really my job; I'll let the DA handle this," and after some investigation the DA determines that there isn't enough evidence to convict and so does not press charges, then the mayor has committed murder.

This is your line of reasoning?

Let the justice dept handle it. It isn't Obama's job anyway

See Clinton impeachment. Plus, he likes the sound of his own voice too much.

I think a woman will and should be selected.

I know he's white and male, but I think Obama will have a 2nd and possibly a 3rd vacancy before the end of his presidency. Right now Turley would be an excellent choice.

is that what is needed on the Supreme Court at this time when there are already 4 ultra-conservatives serving? I suspect not.

Turley's own words:

"I tend to have a fair dose of libertarian feelings so CATO has always held some interest for me." "I tend to be a mutt when it comes to my political views with some conservative, some libertarian and some liberal elements."

http://jonathanturley.org/about/

(you need to scroll down just a bit, about 8 posts down, once you scroll past his bio, where he begins posting re Masonic issues)

"If the AG decides there is not enough evidence to go ahead with a prosecution, then Obama has committed war crimes" is the kind of logic I would expect from an especially addled DUer, as is "Nancy Pelosi is violating the Constitution by not impeaching." Neither are taken seriously by anyone but activists, Kossacks, DUers, and Turley.

And as for his gung-ho anti-Clinton business? That alone should disqualify anyone considering him an expert on when legal redress is demanded by the Constitution.

Turley has a distinguished record of accomplishment which disqualifies him as just an 'entertainer.'
Take a look at the entire entry at the LINK any you will see that his life has been dedicated to public service, and defense of constitutional principles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Turley

Jonathan Turley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Jonathan Turley is a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School where he holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law. He frequently appears in the national media as a commentator on a multitude of subjects ranging from the 2000 Presidential Election Controversy to the Terri Schiavo case in 2005.<1><2>

"Some of Turley’s most notable non-academic work is his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the famous Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy.<3> He challenged Black Bag Operations authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in espionage cases against former CIA officer Harold Nicholson; and four former United States Attorneys General during the Clinton impeachment litigation. He has also represented defendants in terrorism cases including Dr. Ali Al-Timimi (the alleged head of the Virginia Jihad/Paintball conspiracy) and Dr. Sami Al-Arian (in a criminal contempt case)<4>. He also represented Larry Hanauer, a House Intelligence Committee staff member falsely accused of leaking classified information to the New York Times and David Faulk, a whistleblower who revealed abuses at NSA's Fort Gordon surveillance programs. He is also lead counsel in the litigation over the mass arrests at the World Bank/IMF protests in Washington. He testified on the Clinton impeachment as one of the constitutional experts on the standards and merits of the case. The conceptual thread running through many of the cases taken on by Turley is that they involve claims of Executive Privilege and national security exceptions to fundamental constitutional rights.

He is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He lives in D.C. with his wife Leslie. He served as the consultant to the Florida House of Representatives on constitutional issues and also served as the consultant to the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on the impeachment of Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. Professor Turley is also a nationally recognized legal commentator. Turley was ranked as 38th in the top 100 most cited “public intellectuals” in the recent study by Judge Richard Posner. Turley was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He was also ranked among the nation's top 500 lawyers in 2008. (He was previously ranked in the top ten military lawyers as well as one of the forty top lawyers under the age of forty).

His articles on legal and policy issues appear regularly in national publications with over 500 articles in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. He is on the Board of Contributors of USA Today. In 2005, Turley was given the Columnist of the Year award for Single-Issue Advocacy for his columns on civil liberties by the Aspen Institute and the Week Magazine. Professor Turley also appears regularly as a legal expert on all of the major television networks. Since the 1990s, he has worked under contract as the on-air Legal Analyst for NBC News and CBS News to cover stories that ranged from the Clinton impeachment to the presidential elections. Professor Turley is often a guest on Sunday talk shows with over two-dozen appearances on Meet the Press, ABC This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox Sunday."

MORE

Which is why I think he's lying for the sake of getting ratings, and is not simply stupid. He has the qualifications to be a legal scholar. He seems to prefer being a TV entertainer.

It is not a T-V job!!

Gee whiz, how about Bill O'Reilly for secretary of defense.

And Glenn Beck for vice president.

And Anne Coulter for first lady.

anyone who supported Clintons impeachment should not be near a gavel.

His constitutional analysis was correct, as was the decision by the Senate not to remove Clinton from the Oval Office.

Clinton should not have been impeached for the issues Turley gleefully helped lead the charge on. Period.

Gotcha. Clearly we should set a precedent for impeaching every time some right-wing jackass claims the President might have committed a crime, no matter how obviously spurious the charge. Hey, I hear Glenn Beck said Obama is a fascist. I think the House should impeach. The Senate can then decide not to remove, so no worries.

A combination of factual events led to Clinton's impeachment. It was Clinton's untruthful answer after being placed under oath during a deposition that caused his impeachment.

That being said, Clinton should never have been deposed in a civil case while a sitting President in the first place. No deposition .... No impeachment ... regardless of how many affairs he had while in the Oval Office.

What the Senate did was 'weigh' the facts and arguments, and they made a judgment in line with your reasoning that Clinton should not be removed for lying about a sexual act during a civil deposition which should have never occurred in the first place.

I followed it closely when it happened. The Senate made the right decision.

you really think Clinton should have been impeached?

The House members and constitutional experts were divided over whether Clinton's act of testifying under oath untruthfully in response to a civil deposition met that standard.

Many legal experts disagreed on this point given the history of interpreting the scope of 'high crimes and misdemeanors' as the standard.

I said Clinton was not impeached because he engaged in a sexual act with Lewinski, which is true.

My personal opinion was if I were a House member I would not have voted to impeach Clinton because I do not believe it to rise to the level of a 'high crime or misdemeanor' as that standard has been interpreted in the past.

However, Turley and others pointed out that to testify untruthfully under oath is criminal in nature, and in fact Clinton was disbarred as a result.

I liked Clinton and the good he has done. He certainly was the target of relentless Republican stalking the entire time he was in the Oval Office. That civil deposition was a trap that never should have been allowed to occur.

Then you agree with us that Turley was wrong. Good to know.

claim that the Senate made the right decision. The Senate did make the right decision; the Republican case was laughable. Which is why Turley was dead wrong: the House does not have a duty to impeach simply because someone thinks the President might have committed a crime, with no eye towards whether there is a reasonable case or not.

... the question as I clearly stated is whether the act of perjury in that civil deposition rose to the level of a 'high crime or misdemeanor.'

Had Clinton testified truthfully under oath that he engaged in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky during this deposition, there would have been absolutely nothing Repubs could do about it.
Every legal scholar I know is joined in agreement on this issue.

Although my reading of legal precedents did not convince me that perjury in a civil deposition rose to the level of 'high crimes and misdemeanors', there are other legal scholars who would legitimately disagree with me, and neither of us can prove that the other is right or wrong.

Therefore I am not in a position to say that Turley was wrong in his reading and application of the standard.

And nothing I have posted in any way absolves Repubs of their 'dirty tactics' in trying to remove Clinton from office. They are far from having clean hands in the matter.

"high crimes and misdemeaners" was the correct interpretation as opposed to Johnathan Turley's analysis. Here are the links to each of their testimony before the House:

Johnathan Turley's testimony

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/turley.htm

Lawrence Tribe's testimony

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/tribe.htm

In the end, the Senate accepted Lawrence Tribe's analysis over that of Johnathan Turley's in acquitting President Clinton.

The Senate got legal analysis from many more constitutional law scholars than just the two you named here. This was not a one-on-one cage match, with a winner and loser.

What the Senate did was traditional. Many rightwing Republican members voted to remove without engaging in any real constitutional analysis because they wanted to impeach Clinton. Many Democrats agonized over voting no on removal, and eventually voted no. Those in the middle who were most unsure whether the conduct arose to the level of 'high crimes and misdemeanors' most likely considered the future consequences of voting to remove on this basis, and saw a ramping up of future Presidents at risk of impeachment/removal proceedings.

In th end there was not a clear definition as to whether this conduct fell within the standard, and Clinton was not removed from office.

yet the House only agreed with Turley on two of the four charges he argued met the "high crimes and misdemeanors" standard:

"It is important to restate the specific context for this threshold argument. President Clinton stands accused of a series of knowing criminal acts in office, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and abuse of office. While I greatly respect the academics on the other side of this debate, I do not believe that there is a basis to exclude such conduct from potential articles of impeachment on any definitional, historical or policy basis. Far from it, I believe that the argument advanced by the White House would create extremely dangerous precedent for our country and would undermine fundamental guarantees of the Madisonian Democracy. It is my view that the allegations in this inquiry, if proven, would constitute clear and compelling grounds for impeachment and the submission of this matter to the United States Senate for a determination of the merits."

The House found only two of the charges to met the standard, those being perjury and obstruction of justice.

There was, in fact, only two "sides" of the question regarding what constitutes "high crimes and misdemeanors" as written in the Constitution. Professor Tribe was representative of the "side" which argued the charges before the House did NOT meet the standard and Professor Turley is representative of the other "side" which argued the charges did meet the standard. I provided a link to the transcripts of each as they are representative of each side in the totality of their arguments. It would have been somewhat redundant, imo, to link to each and every transcript when the sum total of the arguments put forward were similar for each "side".

You write:

"In th end there was not a clear definition as to whether this conduct fell within the standard, and Clinton was not removed from office."

My point remains, the Senate did NOT accept Professor Turley's opinion that the conduct DID fall within the standard and, by acquitting President Clinton of all charges, were more in agreement with Professor Tribe's opinion that that of Professor Turley.

What part politics played in this is, imo, separate and apart from the debate on the correct interpretation of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" standard as put forth by the two competing 'factions'.

As I said before, Turley and Tribe were just two experts on constitutional law who were consulted for their opinion on a standard set out in the Constitution that can only be described as a non-specific guide.

Neither Turley nor Tribe succeeded in clearly defining the parameters of the 'high crimes and misdemeanors' standard. Why? Because there were no charges set out in the articles of impeachment which resulted in removal by trial in the Senate.

You can try to infer what the Senate 'believed' about the parameters until the cows come home, but there is no precedent as to what 'high crimes and misdemeanors' means as set by the Clinton impeachment and trial.

This does not mean that Turley or Tribe was 'right or wrong' or that their respective opinions might not be adopted in a future impeachment and trial event.

complete testimony for those interested in reading the two disparate interpretations. I said nothing about a precedent being set by the Senate's acquittal of President Clinton. What I did say was that of the two interpretations put forward by the two Professors, Tribe's was the one most reflected in the decision by the Senate as opposed to that of Turley.

Senator Susan Collins

"Nevertheless, I do not think that the President's actions constitute a high crime or misdemeanor. . . .

I will cast my vote not for the current President, but for the Presidency. I believe that in order to convict, we must conclude from the evidence presented to us with no room for doubt that our Constitution will be injured and our democracy suffer should the President remain in office one moment more.

In this instance, the claims against the President fail to reach this very high standard."

Max Baucus

Democrat of Montana

"The Senate's responsibility in this impeachment trial was not to determine whether the President had done something wrong or something that was morally unacceptable.

Nor was it our responsibility to determine whether the President should be punished; that is left for censure and possibly for criminal prosecution in the courts.

The Constitution required us to determine whether the President's conduct rose to the level of an impeachable offense that warranted removing him from office.

I do not believe that his conduct rose to that level on either perjury or obstruction of justice. Therefore, I voted against conviction."

Here is a link to a number of comments from Senators about their vote re the acquittal (I found this an interesting read even putting aside the current debate in which we are engaged):

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/13/us/clinton-s-acquittal-excerpts-senators-talk-about-their-votes-impeachment-trial.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

It is clear the majority of Senators needed to convict President Clinton felt the charges against President Clinton did NOT meet the standard which is contrary to what Turley espoused and more in line with what Tribe espoused.

Edited for clarity

quoted in the NYT article, to which I provided a link in my previous post, did make reference specifically to the charges NOT meeting the standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors".

All differences aside, I have enjoyed the back and forth over this issue as it caused me to go back and do more 'homework' and whereby I have become fascinated with the process all over again. I thank you for that and the civil manner in which you responded.


I don't know if you are one who is fascinated with the impeachment process as it unfolded wrt President Clinton but if you are, here is a marvelous site to do research, etc, on it:

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/impeach.htm

... regarding my interest in this area.

Don't think we need folks on the USSC who think the founders expected an immaterial fellatio fib to rise to the level of presidential impeachment.

...or you're in trouble.